The Well Behind the Trees
by miss selah
Summary: Kagome hasn't been to school lately. [stylization practice][FDS compatible][oneshot][Ayame's POV]


* * *

_The Well Behind the Trees_

_FDS compatible  
_

* * *

The Higurashi Shrine is quiet shrine, ancient and decrepit, depilatory and old.

Have you perhaps seen it?

There is a giant tree with a white ribbon cast around it, and it's supposed to be where memories of the family's history are stored. Why, the current priestess was proposed to and married to her dead husband beneath it's branches! Almost all the families picture have it in it.

It's called the Goshinboku.

The ancient God Tree.

It's not a very big shrine, although the museum has been noted to donate statues and paintings and scrolls to the shrine. Some say for exorcism.

There's a rumor going around at school that the eldest daughter is the one that actually has all the power, and she doesn't come to school because she's too busy fighting the demons that try to break in to our world through the shrine, but that's silly, don't you agree?

There is a family of four living in the house behind the shrine, do you know them? An old man who will try anything to sell you a trinket, the resident priestess Kon Loon, the elder daughter Kagome, whom is always ill, and the only son, Souta, who is a whiz at soccer.

No, Kagome hasn't been to school lately. She's been in the hospital. Poor girl, catches every disease in the book and then some, I swear. There is another rumor surrounding her that she has so many diseases that the only thing keeping her alive is the fact that they are too busy fighting each other to fight her body. Yeah, three stooges. It's an _actual _disease.

Poor girl. She's barely seventeen; she's been so sick since her fifteenth birthday.

Oh, you have heard of her then? Yes, that's the one. The one with those strange eyes. Her dad was American, you know. But he fought for us in the war.

I used to hang out with her all the time, with Eri and Yuka. But she doesn't come around anymore, not really. Not even to pick up her school work. It's been months since I last saw her, and even then, it was only because I happened to see her slipping in to the well house.

Oh, don't you know? She has a Yankee boyfriend. Or maybe it's Yakuza. He's name's Inuyasha, and he's not a half bad guy. I think she used to meet him in the well house so that her family wouldn't know that they were dating, but I'm not so sure. I saw them enter it together a few times and not come out for a very, very long time.

He's actually not that bad of a guy. Pretty nice, actually. We all used to think he was bad for her, but after a while, we began to wonder whether or not she wasn't bad for _him. _

The well house? It's dried up, but it's called the bone eater's well. Kagome told me about it once, a long long time ago. Said that the dry well village that wasn't too far from here used to dump the corpses of demons in to it and they would disappear.

That's right; gone forever.

I know, what a bunch of bologna. She used to think so too, I think, but more recently whenever she talks about anything to do with the shrine or that strange broken necklace she wears, she gets real quiet, you know? And her eyes get kinda distant.

You've seen it too?

Look, there's the well now. And that dumb cat of hers. It's out there every day, patrolling the well. You'd think that it would be busy with all the mice that the forest has, but I guess when a cat is lazy, a cat is lazy.

Yeah, he just sits there and stares at the well house all day. Sometimes he scratches at the door, but mostly he just sits there and. . . stares at it.

Cats are supposed to be attuned to the metaphysical, aren't they?

You don't think the legends about the corpses is true, do you?

You don't think that maybe. . . maybe the cat is seeing something we don't?

Of course not, that'd be silly. A well that swallows bones. Please. Where would they all go? And what if someone was still alive?

Still, that cat freaks me out. Did you hear him meow just now? It's like he's calling up the dead. . . sorry, I'm getting a little freaked out. It's the place, you know?

And we haven't seen Kagome in school for _months. _

I thought she had gotten all better.

Oh well. Maybe Ka

gome's just ditching. Maybe she's in the well house with that Yankee boyfriend of hers. Maybe the stories are true. Maybe the cat just wants to get inside.

I dare you to go peak inside the well house.

Double dog dare you.

What did you see? Were there corpses? Was Kagome in there with her boyfriend? Was it spooky?

What do you mean it was empty?

Ah well. Guess it is just a story then. Doesn't explain the cat. Look at him! The well house is open and he's still just staring at the same spot, just staring. . . staring.

I wonder if he sees Kagome.

I wonder if she's safe.

I know it's silly to think so, but aren't cats supposed to be able to see things that we can't?

I wonder what that cat would have to say.

I wonder why he keeps staring when there's nothing there to see.

* * *


End file.
